We all know the importance of having great photos when selling online, especially for handmade items. There are a different types of photos you can take though and they all play a role in helping you sell your items. One type that not everyone uses, but could benefit from, is staged photos.

What are staged photos and how can they help you sell more of your crafts and handmade items?

Staging could be – Showing someone wearing your item so a buyer can get a true idea of the size. It could also be showing your painting or artwork hanging over a chair or couch. It could just be showing your item placed in a normal house-like setting with other familiar items, like showing a quilt or pillow on a bed. In most cases, staging is just a way of showing your handmade items, artwork, or crafts, in their natural environment or even in use.

White is nice, but – Not for every single photo. White backgrounds are usually the best way to truly represent your item, its colors, and its details. Your primary photos will probably have white backgrounds. It is good to have other photos too though. Just one or two photos that show your item staged in an actual setting can really turn a prospective customer into a buyer. They can also keep you from having to deal with complaints about size discrepancy as well as color differences.

It is a lot easier to know if something is going to look right in your space if you have seen how it looks in someone else’s space, both from a size reference standpoint and from a color perspective. In a lot of cases your staged photos will not be under the same perfect lighting as your white background pics so in some ways they more accurately represent how your items will look in person under most conditions.

How does the color look in person? – One thing you can never be sure of is exactly how the colors of your items will appear on your customer’s computer. Your lighting may be spot on and your monitor could be adjusted perfectly, but you have no control over anyone else’s. Staging can also help with that because you will be taking your photos in different scenarios with different forms of lighting. If possible, use natural lighting in a couple of your photos.

How will it look in my home? – More than likely, your handmade items or crafts will either be worn, placed outside, or inside of someone’s home. Visualizing how something is going to look in person can be very difficult without showing staged photos. How does your handmade quilt look on an actual bed? How large do those earrings look when someone is wearing them? Dimensions only go so far for helping someone visualize something. To really visualize, you need to compare the item to something, something similar to what your customer has.

How big is it? - Sure, you have to put down some dimensions in your item description, but a photo reference is so much better. How tall is 3 inches? Rather than your customer pulling out a ruler and trying to see if that is large enough, give them a reference. How about taking a photo of your item next to something your customer already has? An un-sharpened pencil, a soda can, tennis ball, or even something like an Iphone could really help with the visualization process.

Actually taking a closeup of your item next to a ruler where you can see the lines and numbers works well too. For wearable items, it is tough to beat having a photo where someone is actually wearing your item. Just be sure to zoom far enough out to get enough of the model in the picture for the best size visualization.

They do not have to be closeups – Take your closeups with white backgrounds under perfect lighting conditions. You can zoom out a bit for the staged pictures. You want people to see enough of the surroundings to really see how your particular item fits in.

How distracting will your backgrounds be? – You definitely want people to focus on the right thing, and that is what you are selling. Cluttered photos and simply having too much going on in your images can be really distracting. For your primary photos and for the close-ups, it is hard to beat a simple white background.

Your staged photos serve a different purpose. Rather than showing details, they are there for visualization. They show how your handmade items would fit in with the customer’s surroundings, or with what they could be wearing. The idea is to show your item in relation to where they will eventually be placed.

What about your main photo and thumbnail? – More than likely your customer will find your items by clicking a small photo first. Smaller images should focus only on your item and could actually be a little brighter than their larger counterparts. You want your item to stand out, be as clear as possible, and for people to actually know what it is. Staged photos do not usually work very well for your primary thumbnail images.

Do you stage your photos and do you think it has helped your sales?

Richard Walker

A real common question I receive is about whether to use watermarks on images. You will be putting photos of your handmade items online for the whole world to see and you may be concerned about theft. Here is what you need to know about watermarks.

What is a watermark? A watermark is an image that you place over a photo to either show where it came from or to keep it from being reproduced. Watermarks can be logos or text and are usually semi transparent.  Sometimes a watermark is a copyright symbol as well.

Why would you use a watermark? To protect your image from being reprinted or reproduced illegally or to show where the item in the photo came from. If you paint for example, a watermark would prevent someone from downloading an image of your painting from your website, having it printed, and hanging it on their wall.

People may be sharing images of your handmade items and if you have a watermark in the corner with your website address people will know where you find you.

Do you need a watermark? Not everyone does and the people who really need them, photographers, painters, illustrators, may just use lower resolution images to prevent someone from making a quality reprint.

Aren’t watermarks distracting? Of course they are. I would only use one across an image if I absolutely had to. The alternative is to use a lower resolution image that would not be good for printing.

Does Google have an issue with watermarks? At this time Google does show watermarked images in their image search results. All the stock photo companies that sell photos are able to have their images show up in Google so I would say that there is not an issue.

How secure is a watermark? If someone did download one of your images of either a photo you took or of a painting or drawing they may try to print it rather than purchase your art from you. If you do sell photographs, paintings, drawings, or prints and you have the watermark diagonally across the image then the person will have to take the time to edit out the watermark. Print shops have a general rule of NOT printing copies of images with a watermark. That definitely does not mean that some of them won’t though.

How easy is it to remove a watermark? To skilled people it is pretty easy. The average person will probably not go through the effort of learning or have the capabilities. Experts can always find ways around things but they are in the minority. I guess you could say watermarks keep honest people honest.

Where should the watermark go? For handmade items and crafts, a small watermark in the corner or along the edge will work. For these items the watermark will be there to tell people where the image came from and would be there mainly for marketing rather than for protection. Keep the watermark off of the product itself in this case. You can put your web address or store name as the watermark.

For printed or painted pieces you will want a watermark that covers key aspects of the piece. They usually go right through the center.

How do I put a watermark on my photos? I put a link to a free way to add watermarks in the resources area at the bottom of this article.

Other tips – If you sell artwork in the printed form, photos, paintings, etc, use smaller images of your art on your website. Rather than use one huge photo with a lot of detail, crop a large image and use that as your closeup. To really make a good quality reprint of your image a person will need a full size high resolution image. Only showing a small detail shot will keep them from having that. Keep the resolution of the large overall image low, about 72 px.

Resources

picmarkr.com/ Free and very easy to use – Works Great

Have people been using your photos? Check and see with this site:

http://www.tineye.com/

Have fun watermarking

Richard

I mention in my book ways to set up your photography area, recommend some products, and talk about the best ways to represent your items, but what I want to talk about today is retaking your photos. Taking photos of your items is not a one time event. Some reasons for taking new pictures include:

You get better over time

The more photos you take, the better you get. Your most recent photos may show your items from more angles than your old ones did. You may have also found a better way to show the scale of your items. You have probably also gotten more adept to using the settings on your camera so the colors are more true to life.

Your setup gets better

You may have gone from taking photos on the kitchen table, to using a hand built photo cube, to using professional backdrops and photography lights. Your images no longer have any background distractions and the lighting is much better. Your new tripod is preventing blurry photos and allowing you to get overhead shots.

Your equipment gets better

The expensive camera you used a few years ago is not going to be nearly as good as an entry level point and shoot camera today. The free online photo editing software has been replaced by much more capable purchased software.

A good time to retake photos

I would not remake an item just to take better photos. What I would recommend doing is retaking the photos the next time that item sells. Each time you remake an item and you think you can take better photos, definitely do so. You may choose to keep certain original images and just add a couple recent ones. It is also a good time to consider touching up the original images if necessary. Older images may be darker and may need to be lightened up or even cropped. Sometimes the older images are just physically smaller than the new ones. If your new camera can do higher resolution shots maybe add a couple large images to the gallery so people can see more details.

Good luck with your photography

Richard